Editorial: New York stacks the deck

Published 3:37 pm, Saturday, October 19, 2013

A lawsuit on the casino gambling ballot language fails on a technicality.

THE STAKES:

It's up to New Yorkers to decide whether to trust gambling to a government that tries to rig an election with loaded ballot language.

Forget about loaded dice and crooked roulette tables, New York. You just got an inside look at a rigged game, courtesy of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state Legislature, and the Board of Elections.

The dismissal of a lawsuit over improper ballot language on casino gambling had nothing to do with the merits of the case, and everything to do with a technicality — a technicality that seems to have been craftily arranged by state officials determined to get an edge in the voting booth on Nov. 5. It's all the more reason voters should be skeptical of the push by Mr. Cuomo and the Legislature to change the state constitution.

This has nothing to do with our opposition to the constitutional amendment, though it does thicken the cloud that already hangs for us, and no doubt many New Yorkers, over the prospect of expanded gambling. No, this is about fair play and treating voters with respect.

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The issue is over the language for Proposal One on the ballot. It reads:

"The proposed amendment to section 9 of article 1 of the Constitution would allow the Legislature to authorize up to seven casinos in New York State for the legislated purposes of promoting job growth, increasing aid to schools, and permitting local governments to lower property taxes through revenues generated. Shall the amendment be approved?"

Those words are not the actual change to the state constitution, which is simply an addition that inserts the words "and except casino gambling at no more than seven facilities as authorized and prescribed by the legislature" into the same section that allows lotteries and betting on horse racing.

That's all a fairly written ballot should have said — without language designed to paint a rosy picture of the supposed benefits of casino gambling As we and others have argued before, the extra language the state slipped in amounts to advocacy, which is prohibited by law.

Here's what seems to have happened: The Board of Elections altered more neutral language that had been recommended by the attorney general's office, but didn't reveal it publicly until the time limit for a lawsuit challenging it had expired. So the judge never considered whether the state broke the law against advocacy. It's too late for that.

How very convenient.

Mr. Snyder has decided not to appeal the ruling. That's unfortunate. This vote could have been held off another year without setting the lengthy process of proposing a constitutional change back to square one; a proper, neutrally worded proposal could have been put on the 2014 ballot.

Instead, voters will walk into the polls with a veritable advertisement for casino gambling written into their ballots.

Come Election Day, voters should remember this, and consider whether they want to put casino gambling in the hands of a government that couldn't even hold a vote on the idea without cheating.